The Conversion Window
If you’ve read this article about social media ad spend then you’ll almost certainly want to understand how, and when, to track results.
The Conversion Window
The conversion window is the number of days, months or years, that you see conversions as a result of a campaign.
I was recently chatting to a client of ours who increased their ad spend for the month of June from $300 to $2k. It’s a big increase in ad spend and we’re closely monitoring the performance as to make informed choices about what to do in July and so on.
Whilst we looked at some campaign data provided by Instagram and Facebook we were really only interested in bookings increases. Based on the ad spend, we predicted approximately 100 additional covers but the venue noted an increase of around 200 additional covers for the month.
Our client noted that a return of 200 covers, from a $2k spend, was profitable however, it’s time to consider the conversion window.
If the ad spend in June was $2k, which generated 200 covers in June, how many additional bookings would still occur in July, August and so on? I recently went to The Apollo in Potts Point, around 2 years after I first ‘added it to my list’. Their conversion window is at least 2 years!
The conversion window isn’t just the month the ad goes live - it has a trailing effect that exists for months. By applying a standard model, the trailing effect could look like the below;
June - 200 covers
July - 100 covers
August - 50 covers
September - 25 covers
October - 12 covers
November - 6 covers
December - 3 covers
If this model was accurate, the true ROI is closer to 400 covers, double what was initially reported.
If you set the conversion window too small, ROI will appear to be a lot lower. Many marketers make the mistake of judging their efforts based on the immediate return and not considering the importance of momentum.
Building Momentum
Momentum is a marketing phrase used to describe the trailing benefit on a marketing campaign. Building momentum is the escalating benefit of sustained campaigns.
Let’s look at a few scenarios;
1 month campaign - no ad spend in July
The trailing benefit would still look like this:
July - 100 covers
August - 50 covers
September - 25 covers
October - 12 covers
November - 6 covers
December - 3 covers
2 month campaign - no ad spend in August
The trailing benefit would still look like this:
July - 300 covers
August - 150 covers
September - 75 covers
October - 37 covers
November - 19 covers
December - 9 covers
3 month campaign - no ad spend in September
The trailing benefit would still look like this:
August - 350 covers
September - 175 covers
October - 87 covers
November - 44 covers
December - 22 covers
In this scenario December is experiencing the trailing effect of ads in June, July & August.
If an ad campaign generates a trailing effect of bookings (conversions) then it’s possible to build momentum and gradually increase the future pipeline of bookings.
This is particularly important for the month of January. Many venues ‘switch off’ ads when they are very busy in November & December but do not consider that January benefits most directly from ads in December, but also the 6 - 12 months prior - the conversion window.
BUILD. Agency
Our sister agency, BUILD. Agency works predominantly with builders and architects. One of our clients just landed a $100k design job and when they asked their customer how they had first heard of them, they remembered they had clicked on a Google Ad around 2 years ago.
They weren’t ready to build at the time, but once they had their property and finances ready, they reached out. That’s $100k revenue that can be applied to a campaign from March 2020 - which not only increases the ROAS (return on ad spend) for that month, but widens the conversion window beyond what we previously thought - making it far easier to build momentum well into the future.
